Back in the late ’70s, I was a teenager renting a room at 25 Cromwell Street, a house I’d later find out was the site of unthinkable horrors. I lived with my sister and her baby, all the while figuring Fred West was just an odd character. My friend, Shirley, was Fred’s young lover, pregnant and seemingly in over her head. But one day, Shirley vanished without a trace.
I plucked up the courage to ask Fred, but he shrugged it off, claiming she “moved on.” Little did we know, while we were joking about a pool he was supposedly digging, Fred was actually preparing her grave in the garden beneath our bedroom window. I vividly remember the day it hit the news in 1994 – Fred and his wife, Rose, were arrested on suspicion of multiple murders. My heart froze knowing I’d escaped the clutches of a serial killer by the skin of my teeth.
Living there between 1977 and 1978, Fred often moved in unsettling ways, suggesting propositions for free rent that I managed to evade over time. Despite the looming danger, we stayed, simply having nowhere else to go.
The final straw came when I realised my uneasy nights were more than just nightmares. Shirley’s dismembered body was found right where we once joked about Fred’s intentions. I wrestled with survivor’s guilt, pondering why I escaped while others didn’t.
Years later, Fred took his own life in prison, evading justice’s final reckoning. Rose was tried and found guilty of 10 murders, a haunting verdict I wish Shirley and the others had seen. Now, with the truth out, I reflect on those dark days, a survivor of one of the UK’s most notorious crime stories – a chilling reminder of my almost fatal run-in with Fred West.